


Glue

by spacestationtrustfund



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, crossposting from other platforms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-03 22:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14579166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacestationtrustfund/pseuds/spacestationtrustfund
Summary: You and me and a dead Welsh king. What a party we could have. (An exercise in the inability to recreate tenderness.)





	Glue

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in 2015.

Blue Sargent lasted for about seven minutes alone in the house before she stomped furiously to the Phone/Sewing/Cat Room and dialled Gansey’s number. _Please pick up please be there please answer please—_

"Hello?”

On the phone, Gansey sounded irresistibly normal, not like a politician’s son or empire’s heir or raven boy or doomed ghost, just like the boy she was (probably) in love with, like _Gansey._ The thought flooded Blue with sudden happiness, and she clutched the phone with a grin on her face that made her glad that the house was devoid of psychics.

“Still not Congress?”

Gansey’s words were tired, but amused. “I don’t think I ever will be.”

“God, I hope not.” Blue pressed the phone viciously to her ear, trapping wisps of hair next to her cheek. “If I didn’t kill you, Ronan would.”

There was a moment where it was nothing but a harmless joke, something one friend said to another friend while the two of those theoretical friends might happen to be talking on the phone, without a very real curse to worry about. Blue could almost pretend she was a normal teenager, a girl thinking about making plans with a boy she liked, joking about nothing.

Then it stopped being funny.

“Sorry,” Blue said in a very small voice.

“No, it’s—” Gansey hesitated. She could hear him adjusting and re-adjusting his wireframes. “It’s fine, Jane. Do you . . . need me to come and get you? I’m at Monmouth waiting for Adam, but it wouldn’t take much time, and I could be back before—If you want to, I mean.”

Blue smiled and bit her nails, the taste of Orla’s nail polish in her mouth. “If Congress isn’t too busy signing important laws.”

“Sign the bills to make them become laws,” Gansey corrected her cheerfully. His voice sounded much lighter already, flaunting his obviously superior knowledge of political matters. “It won’t be a problem with, with anyone,” by which he meant any of the multiple female residents of 300 Fox Way, “I mean with your mother or Orla or—?”

“It’s fine,” Blue said, sharper than she meant to. “There’s nobody else here.”

 

-

 

It was highly unusual for 300 Fox Way to be quiet, much less silent, much less empty. It was so unusual, in fact, that even Richard Campbell Gansey III, who was used to all matter or unusual occurrences, found it unusual enough to comment on.

“Calla’s at her boxing class or something,” Blue explained flippantly as Gansey backed carefully out of the driveway. “Orla’s somewhere else, and Mom’s—” In truth, Blue wasn’t sure just where Maura Sargent was, but something felt wrong about admitting that, even to Gansey. “She’s out too. It’s just me.”

Gansey took his eyes away from the road for long enough to look at her and for Blue to feel a shiver all the way down into her bones. “I don’t mind,” he said, in his normal voice, not his raven boy one. “I like it when it’s just you.”

Blue almost laughed, because it was such a stupidly romantic thing to say, and she was supposed to be immune to stupidly romantic things. “You and me and a dead Welsh king. What a party we could have.”

“Well,” Gansey said, his fingers drumming absently on the wheel. “I’ve heard that the best things come in threes. Magic, mysteries, kings. The sort of dangerous stuff we shouldn’t be messing around with.”

“Lucky clovers,” Blue said brutally.

“Yes, well, someone has to defy the stereotype.”

“Oh, the _clover,_ ” Blue said. “I assumed it would be you.”

Gansey took one hand off the wheel and reached for hers. “Jane,” he said, and there was something tight and strained that surrounded the name like an impenetrable mist. “Blue. Sometimes, I . . . I truly wish that you didn’t have a curse.”

Blue felt her breath hitch in her throat as Gansey’s fingers pressed against her wrist. It was not allowed, she knew that much. But she wanted it anyway. She wanted it to be allowed.

At the present moment, Blue’s curse was bifid (a word she had helpfully learned from Gansey): she was destined to kill her true love, and Gansey was destined to die. It didn’t take a psychic, although many concurred on the specifics, to add it up.

“Me too,” Blue admitted in a whisper. She didn’t tell Gansey about the new fears that had started to stalk her: That Gansey would find someone else to kiss, someone who _could_ be kissed, someone whose lips did not carry a death sentence. That, no matter what the stories and prophets and psychics liked to pretend, very few people found their true love at sixteen, or seventeen, or eighteen, for that matter. That something would go wrong and something would happen and—

Blue couldn’t allow herself to think about what it would be like, after. _After._ How she had come to hate that word; how such a simple combination of syllables could inspire such a glorious tragedy.

Gansey’s fingers tightened around her own, and for a moment, Blue permitted herself to only think of the present, not what had happened or would happen or _could_ happen. No more thoughts of graveyards or rain or blood or what was sure to occur within a single year.

Then Gansey’s phone rang, which ruined the moment extremely efficiently.

The person on the other end was unmistakably Ronan Lynch. “You’re not Gansey,” Ronan said flatly, turning it effectively into an accusation. He sounded like a storm on the horizon, a snake waiting for an opening to strike. A dangerous combination, but that was Ronan Lynch. Blue liked to think she had gotten better at dealing with Ronan, as much as someone could get better at that sort of thing.

“No,” Blue said. “I’ve been trying awfully hard.”

Ronan rewarded her with a sound that vaguely resembled a scoff, and Blue had to smile, because she knew she had earned his approval. “Parrish and I are going somewhere, so don’t wait up.”

“Oh. Okay,” Blue said. She shot Gansey a look. “Where?”

“Never you fucking mind,” Ronan said bluntly, which Blue knew meant that they were going back to the Barns. Ronan and Adam had a tendency to disappear to various places together, but Blue wasn’t about to dig into their business. “Tell your raven prince not to expect a warm welcome when he gets home, unless Noah’s there. Oh, and Chainsaw says hi.”

“Oh,” Blue repeated. “Hi.”

“Actually, it was more like—” Ronan made a terrible, hoarse noise in imitation of his pet raven. “But for the sake of convenience and all that shit.” He exhaled slowly, and the line went dead with an audible click.

Blue put down the phone. “Adam and Ronan are going to the Barns to keep working on Ronan’s dream thing,” she told Gansey, because she wasn’t stupid. “Ronan said not to wait for them.”

“Did he? How polite of him.” Gansey’s mild tone meant that he didn’t believe the last part. Blue couldn’t fault him for that much. “Do you—want to go back to Monmouth, or to just—”

“Keep going,” Blue said firmly, reaching out for Gansey’s hand again. “Until we have to be back. Just keep going.”

 

 


End file.
